A New Batch of Stellar Personal Essays to Help You Get Through this Day...
Welcome to Memoir Monday—a weekly newsletter and a quarterly reading series, brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Catapult, Granta, Guernica, Oldster Magazine, Literary Hub — and now many additional publications.
In addition to the weekly curation, there are now occasional original personal essays under the heading of First Person Singular, for paying subscribers. If you haven’t become a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one.
The fifth original essay, published in First Person Singular in late June, is The Sitting Month, by Jiadai Lin. The sixth original essay is coming later in July.
Submissions are open. You can find submissions guidelines and more on the “About” page. Subscribe and follow us on Twitter at @memoirmonday for updates!
Essays from partner publications…
The Fastest Formerly Blind “Biker Babe” in Wichita
by peech breshears
“If you’re lucky, the change from one highway to the other is wide, easy and open, and with music pumping through your helmet it feels like being a bird — dipping, diving, twisting, and cutting through the night aimlessly, without a single care in the world…It feels like flying…This is a regular occurrence on highways all over the world, but it’s special for me: a person who used to be blind but now not only sees pretty close to perfectly but rides as fast as my nerves and bike will allow.”
Small Patches of America: When America’s Suburban Romance Is Undone
by Pranay Somayajula
“Growing up, I took pride in my family’s ability to exist simultaneously as Indians and as Americans. It seemed to me that we were able to prove our worth as upstanding citizens of this country while still holding on to our cultural heritage, maintaining a grasp on our culture within the privacy of our home while still projecting an external image of conformity. It wasn’t until I was older that I became aware of the painful illusions underlying this pride.”
Rites of Passage
by Suzanne Roberts
“Until recently, I didn’t know one of the rites of passage of middle age included a passage up the rear with a small camera on a wire. And people like my husband don’t talk about these things; he is midwestern-nice, which means you don’t bring up things like alcoholism, abortion, infidelity, and failed marriages. Unfortunately for him, he married a writer, and these are my top subjects. You also don’t discuss my newest topics: colonoscopies and polyps.”
Secret Solitary
by Thomas Bartlett Whitaker
“We’ve all heard the rumor that the state was supposed to be reducing the number of those of us in solitary, but that’s all it is to us: a rumor. I know of no one who believes it — not one.”
The Alchemy of Language: Ina Cariño on Naming, Claiming, and Protecting Ancestral Land
by Ina Cariño
"Words are symbols, names are spells; and in this othered life, I am drawn to such magic, such enchantment. For a moment, consider divination—imagine circling the tarot, its Major Arcana and the four suits: wands, cups, swords, and pentacles. We begin this fortune-telling story with The Fool, who has no name. And, because the tarot is a circle, we always return to The Fool.”
The Sitting Month
by Jiadai Lin
"The month of healing my mother referred to is called zuo yue zi, which, in our native Mandarin, means the “sitting month.” In Chinese culture, the month after a woman gives birth is sacred. Our bodies gradually close up after labor, and it’s critical to protect ourselves from cold forces that could seep in through our cracks."
Essays from around the web…
Fourteen Ways of Looking
by Erin Vincent
“At fourteen my parents crossed the road. They did not get to the other side…T-o-w-t-r-u-c-k-d-r-i-v-e-r. Fourteen letters…Told police he was driving home, not rushing to a job, but home was in the other direction…I have never said this out loud before, but…
Both men killed her. Dad and the driver.”
Signs of Life: On the Surreal Nature of Secondary Trauma
by Raksha Vasudevan
“In the daytime, with sunlight filtering through lace-edged curtains, I could rationalize: Antakya was too far for the noise to travel. My brain was simply recreating the sounds from news footage. But in the dark, I lay very still, the sheets soaked with sweat. I was paralyzed, not by the idea of war coming closer—if that happened, I could run or hide or fight, do something. No, what frightened me was knowing that the horrors I was imagining, and worse, were happening just an hour away.”
Hair Is More Than Serious Business: It’s Identity
by Stephanie Golden
"Long ago a friend handed me a book called Five Sisters: memoirs by five 19th-century Russian anarchists whose fierce idealism, at the cost of tremendous personal sacrifice and a certain cold-blooded willingness to commit murder, helped bring about the assassination of Tsar Alexander I in 1881. It was full of photos of these young women, dark-eyed and intense, with masses of dark hair. “They remind me of you,” my friend said. I was young, but no revolutionary—I couldn’t even watch violent movies. Still their single-minded, fearless gaze, conveying pure refusal, struck a chord. Even more: all that hair."
🚨Announcements: New Workshop Alert!
Hashing It Out: The Writing You’re Afraid to Put Into the World
A remote two-evening workshop/support group for writers halted by fear. Wednesdays, July 13 & 20, 6:00-8:00pm EST. $150
Stuck on a memoir, essay, or other work-in-progress that’s very personal, because you’re conflicted about putting certain material out into the world? Looking for alternative ways to frame it—and/or support from others in the same boat? In two two-hour sessions, memoirist, editor, teacher, and former ghostwriter (and Memoir Monday editor) Sari Botton will help you figure out the best approaches, along with your workshop mates.
After struggling with fear for many years, Sari figured out a way forward and published her memoir, And You May Find Yourself…Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo in June of 2022. Now she’s ready to help you.
The class, to be conducted remotely over Zoom, will be limited to 8 participants, who will be chosen via application.
How to apply: Email to pitch2sari@gmail.com a synopsis of up to one page of the essay or memoir you are writing or want to write. In your email, make a brief note (a paragraph or two) of what is holding you back. (All submissions will be considered confidential, by both Sari and workshop participants.) Also, note your history with writing and publishing. In your subject line, write “Workshop Application: Hashing It Out.”
📢 Attention Publications and writers interested in having published essays considered for inclusion in our weekly curation:
By Thursday of each week, please send to memoirmonday@gmail.com:
The title of the essay and a link to it.
The name of the author, and the author’s Twitter handle.
A paragraph or a few lines from the piece that will most entice readers.
Because of data limits for many email platforms, going forward we will only include artwork from our partner publications. No need to send art.
*Please be advised, however, that we cannot accept all submissions, nor respond to the overwhelming number of emails received. Also, please note that we don’t accept author submissions from our partner publications.
You can also support Memoir Monday—and indie bookstores!—by browsing this Bookshop.org list of every book that’s been featured at the Memoir Monday reading series. It’s a great place to find some new titles to add to your TBR list!
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